Open Letter To Jordan`s King Hussein

September 30, 1990|By BANDAR BIN SULTAN AL-SAUD, Special to The Washington Post

Your Majesty, you gave a moving speech to the American people this past week, which appears to have been delivered over the head of your longtime friend, President Bush. In it you say you were moved to do it because of a letter from a Mr. Brown of North Carolina.

Wouldn`t it be more honorable and truly moving if you had been moved enough by Kuwaiti women and children with tears in their eyes because they lost their country as a result of the aggression of your friend Saddam Hussein?

Would it not be more honorable and honest to speak to the Iraqi people over the head of your other friend, Saddam, and tell them what he has dishonorably done in invading and annexing a brother Arab and Muslim country -- and of horrifying acts of rape and destruction that are unprecedented in Arab history?

That is fact, and facts are stubborn things. You say, Your Majesty, that the holy places in Saudi Arabia have been desecrated by friendly forces and that those forces must leave immediately.

But those forces are actually hundreds of miles away, and there are tens of thousand of Muslim and Arab forces (your forces not among them) between those friendly forces and the holy places.

And all those forces are dedicated to help defend Saudi Arabia and are respectful of its custodianship of the holy places. They will not leave until your friend Saddam leaves Kuwait, which we hope will be peacefully and immediately.

Tell us, Your Majesty, what you have done to safeguard the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that you lost to the Israelis in 1967, almost a quarter of a century ago? Is that the kind of protection that you want us to give to the holy places in Saudi Arabia?

Your Majesty, the holy places in Saudi Arabia are protected only by your brother Muslims, and no non-Muslim is anywhere around, as millions of Muslims can daily attest. You know that to be a fact.

And, Your Majesty, you claimed to defend the Palestinian people`s right to self-determination and a state of their own. And I support you in that.

But you were responsible for the Palestinian homeland on the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. Why in all that period did you not give them their rights and statehood? And how would the occupation of Kuwait give our brother Palestinians their homeland?

You talk of ``haves`` and have-nots.`` Saudi Arabia`s record as one of the ``haves`` is clear in helping the ``have-nots,`` and we are proud of it. Just turn to the records of your finance minister and see how much has been given to you and your country for many years by Saudi Arabia, willingly and happily, as brothers.

When you needed Saudi troops to help you, they came and spent 10 years in your country at your asking. And we did not question why or why not, nor raise ``ifs,`` ``ands`` or ``buts,`` as you do now.

You are a very intelligent man, Your Majesty. And you have a fine memory. You say the Kuwait-Iraqi border is disputed and based on a historical record created by the colonial British.

Your Majesty, you should be the last one to say that. Not only all your borders, but your whole country was created by the same colonial British. And do you remember when the British troops were invited by you into your country in 1958? We did not object or question your motives and judgment over that.

Your brother King Fahd is proud to have as friends Presidents Mubarak and Assad, King Hassan and the presidents of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Senegal, the leaders of the Mujahedeen, Presidents Gorbachev, Bush and Mitterrand and Prime Minister Thatcher, and so many more heads of state and their people who have joined in the worldwide consensus at the United Nations arrayed against the naked aggression and annexation of our brother state Kuwait.

I hope you are proud of your new friends -- Saddam Hussein, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Habash, Hawatmeh and the rest of that unholy crowd.

You tell us, Your Majesty, that the situation today is like 1914, when the world was going to a war it did not want but could not stop, which led to World War I. That is not true. Your Majesty, the situation today is like the 1930s, when a madman decided to annex his neighbor and the world did nothing, which led to World War II.

Your Majesty, please remember what caused this entire crisis in our region -- it was the invasion of the Arab and Muslim state of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. And only after that and because of that were Muslim Arab and friendly forces invited. They will all leave when this aggression is turned back or when we ask them to leave. These are facts.

Your Majesty, I long had great respect and affection for you, and I continue to have deep respect and affection for your people. But I no longer can feel that you are the same man I knew. I hope that I am wrong. And if I am wrong, please accept my sincere apologies, Your Majesty. But facts are stubborn things.